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After the energydrink photo shoot, I arrive back at the condo with Henry. Tweetie is meeting up with Conor at some club. I swear, the two of them are on a quest to meet every single woman in Chicago.
“Why aren’t you going out?” I ask Henry.
“Not in the mood. I’m gonna shower and go get Bodhi and take him to his favorite pizza place. You wanna come?”
I stop on the sidewalk and look at Peeper’s Alley.
Henry laughs. “Forget it, man. Go get your girl.”
“Sorry.”
He presses the security code into the pad by the gate. “Don’t apologize. I like knowing I’m not the only one who wants a steady person in my life rather than women constantly coming and going.”
“Maybe you need to go find that girl,” I say, walking backward toward the bar.
“That ship sailed. See you tomorrow.” He waves and disappears inside the gate.
I open the door to Peeper’s and stand just inside the threshold, watching Leigh behind the bar. She’s wearing her heartwarming smile and a T-shirt with the bar logo on it that stretches across her tits.
“Magic!” A woman I don’t recognize comes over to me. She’s probably in her early twenties. She looks back at her friends. “I told you bitches he comes here.”
They’re the youngest customers here by far, and they all have mixed drinks surrounding them—probably because Ruby refuses to serve seltzers. In her opinion, the girls stick around longer that way, and she’s protective of us. I kind of like it.
“Do you want to get a drink?” The girl steps forward and brushes her tits along my bare arm.
“Sorry, I’m…” I’m what? I don’t actually know. I’m not taken. Technically, I’m single. But I’m not interested in meeting anyone. “I can’t.”
I move away from her to walk toward the bar, but she steps in front of me. “Come on. I came all the way from Joliet. My friends and I are your biggest fans.” She dips her chin and looks up at me through her lashes.
I look toward the bar. Leigh is watching us, and I don’t see Ruby anywhere. She usually handles this type of thing for us, so we don’t get bad press from the girls we’re rejecting.
“I can do an autograph or a picture, but not a drink. Sorry.”
She playfully pouts, her bottom lip drooping lower as if there’s a weight attached to it the longer I don’t relent. “Okay, a picture would be great.”
I turn and walk over to the table.
“You’re so much hotter in person,” one of the women says. “I bet you get that all the time.”
I don’t say anything but move behind the girls since I tower over them and smile at their friend holding the camera.
“Wait! You have to be in it, Lizzie,” a girl says and snatches up Lizzie’s phone, going over to the row of men with strained beer bellies over their belts. They’re a great group of guys who don’t ever heckle us when we come in. I actually think they’re more baseball fans than hockey. “Would you mind taking a picture for us?”
The man looks at the phone and back at the girl. “No.” He circles back around to face the bar and television that’s replaying a Colts game.
“I’ll do it.” Leigh rounds the bar.
Her long legs that I love to have wrapped around me look amazing in the short shorts. Thankfully, no younger guys usually come in here. I should make sure somehow that Tweetie and Conor don’t come here after they get back tonight.
“Perfect. Thanks.” The girl hands Leigh the phone.
“It’s like finding a conch shell in the ocean, am I right, girls? The chances of you meeting Rowan Landry are insane.” Leigh smiles too wide, overly friendly, positioning the phone to take a picture.
All the girls surround me, and I cough from the amount of perfume wafting around us.
“Put your arms around them, heartbreaker.”
I drill my gaze into hers, and she laughs, then I position my arms out around the group of them.
